A US federal judge has dismissed Laura Loomer's defamation lawsuit against HBO and comedian Bill Maher, dealing a decisive legal blow to her claim over a televised joke suggesting she had an affair with Donald Trump.
The ruling, issued on summary judgment, ends a closely watched case that tested the boundaries between satire and defamation in American media. Loomer, a prominent far-right activist, had argued that Maher's remarks on his HBO programme crossed from comedy into false factual assertion. The court, however, found the claim did not meet the legal threshold required to proceed to trial.
